Festivals & Events

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The HFPA gave away more than $2 million in donations during a gala dinner packed with stars and surprises at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. The amount tops last year's contributions of more than $1.

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Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies will début at the 53rd New York Film Festival. The Cold War spy drama, written by the Coen Brothers and starring Tom Hanks and Amy Ryan is part of a substantial line-up of world premieres that also includes Robert Zemeckis’ The Walk, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as daredevil Philippe Petit of walk-between-the-Twin-Towers fame; the Miles Davis biopic Miles Ahead, directed by and starring Don Cheadle as the jazz giant; and Laura Israel’s documentary Don’t Blink, about photographer Robert Frank.

From July 30 to August 16 the second largest city in Australia, has been living and breathing film: Melbourne is hosting its annual Film Festival, created in 1952 and one of the oldest international events in the festival circuit. Over the span of three weeks, the event, has managed to jam pack a true marathon of screenings that includes all kinds of film.

Tilda Swinton, Johnny Depp, Idris Elba and Eddie Redmayne will swing by Venice’s Lido island before making an appearance in Toronto: their movies, A Bigger Splash (Luca Guadagino, director), Black Mass (Scott Cooper, director), Beasts of No Nation (Cary Fukunaga, director) and The Danish Girl (Tom Hooper, director) have been picked up by both festivals. The LINE-UP for this year’s Venice Film Festival highlights European and North American titles, with Latin America in the mix as well.

A key stop in the festival circuit and an important element in shaping the fall season, the Toronto International Film Festival has some of the year’s most anticipated pictures on its 2015 program. Demolition, directed by Canadian Jean-Marc Vallée (Wild, Dallas Buyers Club) and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, will open this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, on September 10.

While Taiwan becomes a hot location for big-budget project, Taipei’s local film festival aims at new and emerging talent from Asia and beyond. With Martin Scorsese filming his upcoming movie Silence, and Luc Besson flying Scarlett Johansson across the Pacific Ocean for Lucy, Taipei is quickly becoming one of the hot new international movie locations.

All good things must come to an end and so did Comic-Con 2015, with a mad rush here at HFPA SDCC HQ! The last press conferences included James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe for Victor Frankenstein, the revisiting of the Mary Shelley novel that focuses on the relationship between the misunderstood doctor (McAvoy) and his faithful assistant Igor (Radcliffe). Ryan Reynolds stopped by with the cast of Deadpool the R-Rated anti-superhero (or is it super anti-hero?) movie that made big waves at the Hall H Fox presentation.